1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to data storage devices and, in particular, to systems and methods utilizing atomic resolution storage techniques for storing data.
2. Background of the Invention
Recently developed semiconductor-based electron sources can be used in data storage devices, such as hard drives, optical drives, and dynamic random access memory (DRAM), for example. An example of such a data storage device is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,557,596. The device described in that patent includes multiple electron emitters with electron emission surfaces that face a storage medium. During write operations, the electron sources bombard the storage medium with relatively high intensity electron beams. During read operations, the electron sources bombard the storage medium with relatively low intensity electron beams.
During fabrication of such a data storage device, multiple semi-conductor wafers are used. Typically, a first wafer includes one or more data clusters, which are defined by storage media, and a second wafer includes one or more emitters. The wafers are aligned and maintained in relative position with respect to each other, such as by bonding the wafers together. Due to various fabrication tolerances, however, one or more of the emitters of the second wafer may not be appropriately aligned with respect to corresponding storage areas of the first wafer. This misalignment could potentially result in an inability of the data storage device to properly write data to and/or read data from one or more of the storage areas. Therefore, there is a need for improved systems and methods that address these and/or other shortcomings of the prior art.